


i wanted to hurt you (but the victory is that i could not stomach it)

by voxofthevoid



Series: couldn't get the boy to kill me [12]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Captain America Steve Rogers/Modern Bucky Barnes, Dominance and Submission, Dysfunctional Relationships, Face Slapping, Hate Sex, M/M, Marathon Sex, Masochism, Mildly Dubious Consent, Sadism, Separations, Violent Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:41:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23312527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voxofthevoid/pseuds/voxofthevoid
Summary: He finds Bucky in the training room, clad in a half-zipped black suit and panting from exertion.He goes very still at the sight of Steve, and once, it would have been amusing to see him straighten from his tired slouch into a stance that’s stiff and uneasy. He looks ridiculous and prettier than he has any right to be, and Steve can hardly appreciate it because he’s seeing red from rage.“I was just about to leave,” Bucky says, making an aborted motion towards the door. He’s looking at Steve but not meeting his eyes, and the behavior’s as familiar as it is irritating.“I heard.”Bucky’s expression is all deer-in-headlights, at least for a moment before it’s swallowed up by forced calm. He nods once, decisively, and folds his arms across his chest.The silence is loud.“Nothing to say?” Bucky asks, and it’s hard to tell whether he’s irked or relieved. He’s all bravado now, hip cocked and jaw set, but his gaze is firmly fixed on some spot behind Steve’s shoulders.“Yes. Suit up.”“Steve?”“Zip your fucking suit, Barnes. Let’s go a few rounds.”-Bookends, jagged and ugly.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: couldn't get the boy to kill me [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1257302
Comments: 210
Kudos: 711





	i wanted to hurt you (but the victory is that i could not stomach it)

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [i wanted to hurt you (but the victory is that i could not stomach it)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28938099) by [WTF Bucky Bottom 2021 (WTF_Bucky_Bottom_2021)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WTF_Bucky_Bottom_2021/pseuds/WTF%20Bucky%20Bottom%202021)



> Fic title from “Snow and Dirty Rain” by Richard Siken. 
> 
> Ironic title is real fucking ironic. **As for the dubcon tag** —Steve aggressively comes on to Bucky with the explicit purpose of making him safeword out. Bucky, who’d probably let Steve stick a knife in him by this point, does not use his safeword and reciprocates instead. The ensuing sex is violent and good for no one’s mental health. 
> 
> Also, Pietro is alive because I say so. This series is sad enough as it is.
> 
> The banners for this and for the other works in the series are by[kocuria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kocuria) 💖

* * *

* * *

He finds Bucky in the training room, clad in a half-zipped black suit and panting from exertion.

He goes very still at the sight of Steve, and once, it would have been amusing to see him straighten from his tired slouch into a stance that’s stiff and uneasy. He looks ridiculous and prettier than he has any right to be, and Steve can hardly appreciate it because he’s seeing red from rage.

“I was just about to leave,” Bucky says, making an aborted motion towards the door. He’s looking at Steve but not meeting his eyes, and the behavior’s as familiar as it is irritating.

“I heard.”

Bucky’s expression is all deer-in-headlights, at least for a moment before it’s swallowed up by forced calm. He nods once, decisively, and folds his arms across his chest.

The silence is loud.

“Nothing to say?” Bucky asks, and it’s hard to tell whether he’s irked or relieved. He’s all bravado now, hip cocked and jaw set, but his gaze is firmly fixed on some spot behind Steve’s shoulders.

“Yes. Suit up.”

That startles him into looking squarely at Steve. In this light, his eyes are more grey than blue. Steve never gets tired of the way they seem to shift between shades on a myriad of random factors, and he hates that thought even as it crosses his mind.

“Steve?”

“Zip your fucking suit, Barnes.” Steve pauses, an old, unforgotten phrase echoing in his mind. He barely feels his lips shape the words. “Let’s go a few rounds.”

Bucky’s eyes widen, and Steve wants them on him forever.

He’s got a handful of hours.

“It’s a bad idea, Steve,” Bucky mutters, resigned, nimble fingers already tugging up the zip. He’s uncertain as he takes a step closer, but his expression settles into grim lines of determination as he takes in Steve’s own training clothes and the painful clench of his fists. “Alright then. Come on.”

Later, Steve won’t remember much of the fight. He’ll know he lunged and punched and blocked and kicked, and he’ll ache with the chill of the air on his heated skin, but what he’ll remember is this: Bucky, panting and flushed, his lips thinned and eyes burrowed in frustration, and then, once his feelings for Steve have been tucked away in an onslaught of violence, blank the way he is during missions.

He’ll remember Bucky pinned underneath him, struggling with all his might, wiry body writhing for purchase and doing little except earn more bruises where Steve’s fingers are digging into flesh.

Bucky relaxes inch by inch, tension bleeding out of him at a trickle. He’s a mess—hair loose and sticking to his face wetly, lips and knuckles bleeding from shallow cuts, bruised in a thousand different places. His breathing is labored, his expression pained once that telltale emptiness drains out of his eyes. He blinks up at Steve with his mouth parted sweetly, almost confused to find himself where he is.

Steve gives him barely a minute to orient himself and then he’s reaching between their bodies to tug at Bucky’s suit. He tears apart the zipper in his haste, leaving Bucky’s chest unevenly exposed. He does the rest with his hand, and their training suits are supposed to durable, to withstand Captain America’s restrained strength and Scarlet Witch’s unseen blows, but Steve’s not feeling very restrained right now. The fabric tears like tissue paper, and Bucky arches up with a moan.

“We agreed we wouldn’t do this anymore,” he gasps out, chiding like he’s not wrapping his legs around Steve’s back and pressing up against him.

The words still give Steve pause, and the anger dampened by the fight—an outlet, a temporary cure—comes soaring back. He grabs Bucky roughly by the chin, and his blood thrills at the violent shudder that elicits. 

“No,” Steve tells him, very quiet because if he raises his voice now, he’ll start screaming and probably never stop. “You did. You decided, Bucky, like you always do because that’s all that matters, isn’t it? What you want, the world be damned.”

 _Steve_ be damned. Bucky’s no fool, and Steve’s anything but subtle. He’s known a long time what he meant to Steve. He certainly made it clear that night, and again the morning after, just in a very different way. Steve will never tell, but his world went to hell long before Ultron tore Sokovia to shreds.

Something complicated passes over Bucky’s face before Steve can catch it. That’s more frustrating more than it should be. Steve spent more time watching Bucky than was healthy for anyone. In bed, on the floor, and against a wall, but at other times too—missions and galas and those little impromptu gatherings they had, the Avengers coming together like a mismatched family of misfits.

They’re done now. Clint and Tony have retired, Bruce has vanished, Thor has gone to worlds Steve can only dream of, and Bucky–

There’s Wanda, Pietro, and Sam. Rhodey, sometimes. Natasha, of all people, has become his rock. But it’ll never be the same. Steve remembers feeling hollow during the Chitauri invasion, missing Peggy and the Commandos like so many limbs, and it’s happening all over again, but at least this time, he’s losing people to life, not death and seventy years of sleep.

That’s comforting except when it’s about Bucky.

He’s just staring up at Steve, eyes big and wounded. Steve wants to hurt him, mark him up and see those pretty eyes swell with tears, get him sobbing with Steve’s name clenched between his teeth.

He tears at the rest of the suit until Bucky’s a pale vision in a puddle of tattered black, his skin slick with sweat and bruised in places from Steve’s fists. Steve flattens his palms over Bucky’s chest, and his own heart quickens its pace to match Bucky’s. He drags his hands down, over smooth skin and taut muscle to curve around a muscled thigh and over his half-hard cock. Bucky makes a faint sound in his throat when Steve’s fingers curl loosely over his dick. He doesn’t even have to do anything for it to fill all the way, just hold it gently and watch Bucky.

Steve promised himself this would be quick and dirty, but now, he can’t help taking his time, greedily devouring the sight of Bucky for the last time. At least, he knows, now, that it’ll be the last.

That morning, he woke up smiling for the first time in a long time and look where that got him.

Steve works his fingers into the waistline of his own suit and pulls, tearing it unevenly from navel downwards. Bucky’s eyes fall almost helplessly to the skin revealed, and Steve loses a moment staring at how his tongue darts out to wet his lips, once, twice, before he sets his teeth on them, biting hard until plush pink turns thin and bloodless.

He’s beautiful, this boy, and he wants Steve, if only like this, and it’s not fair.

Steve smiles, humorless. It’s been a whole damn lifetime since he last had that thought.

There’s lube in his pocket, and he throws it on the floor beside their bodies, shuffling back after to take his place between Bucky’s legs. They’re reluctant to detach from where they’ve wound around Steve’s back, but he pries them off to the rhythm of Bucky’s quickened breaths and spreads them wide just because he can.

Bucky squirms a little, eyes screwing shut. His hair fans out under his head, a few errant strands lying over his face. Steve wants to twist his hands into them and never let go.

“Steve,” Bucky breathes, voice low and husky the way it gets when he’s turned on.

The lube opens with a quiet snick.

Bucky’s hand flies up to grab Steve’s wrist, metal fingers carving bruises into his flesh. Steve meets Bucky’s eyes, finds them blown wide and a little wild.

“Don’t do this, Steve.”

Steve doesn’t check his strength when he yanks Bucky upright. He wraps one hand around his throat, the other in his hair, lube forgotten between their bodies. Bucky’s heaving for breath, expression open and verging on fear. He’s trapped, held in Steve’s hands. It’s familiar, all of this, and Steve aches to kiss this man until he can’t breathe without tasting Steve, but he doesn’t. Can’t.

“You know how to make me stop,” Steve murmurs, lips almost brushing Bucky’s. “So make me stop.”

He waits, ears pricked for that one word.

He’s never been kind to Bucky, first because he wasn’t allowed and then because he didn’t really want to be, but in everything he’s done, every moment of violence, there has remained one line he wouldn’t cross. And now he waits for Bucky to draw that line in the space between their breaths, waits for him to push Steve away without so much as a touch. He’ll leave, he will, without a breath of complaint, but he _needs to hear Bucky say it_.

Maybe he came here to make Bucky say it.

“Say it,” he hisses, tightening his grip in Bucky’s hair, pulling a guttural cry out of him.

Bucky’s gasping mouth presses against his.

It’s not the teeth and tongue catastrophe he was half-expecting but a gentle thing, soft lips and sweet movement. Bucky breathes against Steve’s mouth, lips parted for a warm whisper of air. He’s kissing Steve like Steve has always wanted to kiss him, and he wants this to last for the rest of his life.

He tears away and slaps Bucky hard across the face.

His head snaps to the side, and Steve can feel the force of the blow in the hand he’s still got wrapped up in Bucky’s hair. He lets go but catches Bucky’s head before it can slam against the floor. Bucky stares up at him with dazed eyes, lips bloody from that cut that’s started bleeding again. His cheek is reddening violently, and Steve leans down to sink his teeth into his handprint.

Bucky makes a gutted noise and rakes his nails down Steve’s back, hard enough to feel through the suit.

Steve swipes his tongue over the blood on Bucky’s mouth before he pulls back, and it’s not a kiss but something more appropriate for the two of them. Bucky is breathing hard, cock wet between his legs, and he smiles sweetly up at Steve like he’s dying a slow death.

“I deserved that,” Bucky says, and Steve doesn’t breathe one goddamned word about how it has never been about what they _deserved_.

He fucks Bucky instead, slick smeared on his cock and around Bucky’s hole. It hurts him when Steve takes him with no prep. Bucky whines and squirms even when Steve has loosened him beforehand with his fingers or mouth. Like this, with nothing but lube to ease the way, he cries and writhes like Steve’s tearing him apart.

Steve wants to tear him apart, wants to hurt him, and he doesn’t stop until he’s balls-deep in Bucky, panting through an open mouth as scorching heat swallows his cock.

Under him, Bucky’s curved into a sharp arch, the muscles of his torso straining. He slumps down a second later, eyes unseeing as they flit over Steve’s face and mouth open in a soundless scream. He’s not breathing, and then he is, ragged sobs fighting past his throat and ringing in Steve’s ear. His cock throbs inside Bucky, aching to move, and he does, almost pulling out before snapping his hips, fucking deep and tearing a ragged shout out of Bucky.

“Quiet,” Steve hisses, throat thick from holding back his own sounds. “We’re not alone here.”

Bucky doesn’t even seem to hear him, and the next thrust is punctuated with another cry, higher this time, and Steve can’t stop, doesn’t want to, but he hisses another warning when Bucky sobs and cries out each time Steve slams into him. He sounds a wreck and looks it too, and Steve wants to hear what he’s doing to him but can’t, not when the rest of the team is scattered around the compound.

“Shut _up_ ,” he snaps, and he’s not helping, thrusting hard in time with the command, but it’s worth it to see Bucky throw his head back and _scream_.

Steve still doesn’t stop but he slows to a hard, dirty grind and grabs Bucky by the chin again, digging his fingers in and shaking until his hazy eyes focus on Steve’s face. They’re bright with unshed tears and utterly wild.

Steve fucks in a little harder, and Bucky whines high in his throat.

“ _Bucky_.”

“I can’t,” Bucky gasps, sounding like it’s taking all he has to get the words out. “I’m sorry, I can’t, it’s—”

He cuts off with a grunt and clenches around Steve’s cock, and he can’t help it; he pulls out and rams back in, heat pooling in his gut at the choked off noises Bucky can’t hold in. Another thrust, another shout, and Bucky’s talking again, mumbling apologies in between curses and helpless, high-pitched cries. He’s a fucking wreck, so far gone, and Steve just wants to ruin him more.

He comes to that thought, spilling inside Bucky with a muffled shout of his own. Bucky gasps like he’s dying and comes, muscles spasming and milking Steve as his release paints their stomachs. 

There’s a moment of frozen silence, Bucky panting soundlessly into his arm and Steve catching his breath over him. He’s still hard, but Bucky’s cock is limp and spent, inviting Steve’s touch with its soft, vulnerable curve.

A faint, wounded noise is torn out of Bucky when Steve closes his fingers around his length.

“Don’t.” He shakes his head, eyes wide and imploring, a look that goes straight to Steve’s dick. “I— _hah_ , Steve, don’t, I’m not–”

He trails off with a moan when Steve starts moving again, fucking into his own wet mess and speeding when he feels it drip out of Bucky, slicking his ass and thighs. He doesn’t even mean to, but between one thought and the next, he’s fucking Bucky like he wants to kill him, savage and cruel. Bucky sobs for breath, hands groping at Steve for purchase. Steve grabs them to pin them above Bucky’s head, shifts more of his weight on to Bucky, and takes him faster, deeper, holding him down and making him take every fucking thing Steve has to give.

It gets Bucky writhing like nothing, and he’s not even screaming anymore, just making these small, pained whimpers. His face is wet now, tears streaming down reddened skin, and Steve leans down to lap at his cheek, sucking at the skin, softly at first and then harder when Bucky jerks and shouts like Steve’s bitten off a piece of his heart.

He feels like he can do this forever, fuck Bucky forever, and keep him, just like this, always.

“St- _Steve_ ,” Bucky moans into his ear, and Steve realizes he said that out loud. He pulls back, licking Bucky’s tears off his teeth, and rolls his hips helplessly at the wild-eyed desperation Bucky’s wearing. He strains up, flesh and metal straining against Steve’s grip, and Steve’s too entranced to move away even when Bucky’s mouth gasps out a plea an inch from his own.

“Please, please, _Steve_ , please.”

He’s rambling, this wreck of a man lost in the heat of their bodies. Steve’s no better. He _wants._

“Steve, I’m sorry, please,” Bucky begs, and Steve kisses the next breath right off his lips.

Bucky opens for him as sweetly as last time, gasping into Steve’s mouth and moaning around his tongue, and it’s heady, addictive, and Steve’s seized by the ghost of a feeling—something warm and true—before reality rushes in, and he bites hard enough to flood his mouth with the taste of metal. Bucky keens at the back of his throat and kisses back harder. It’s clumsy and filthy, blood and spit smearing their lips. Bucky’s mouth drives him insane, the heat and taste of him, makes him fuck in frantically, chasing that rush right off the cliff’s edge.

He sinks his teeth into Bucky’s jaw when he comes, hips thrusting madly as his own heat surrounds him. Bucky keens through the relentless throb of it, rolling his body like he wants to get Steve deeper and pull away at the same time.

Steve slumps over Bucky for a moment, breathing hotly against his neck. He can feel Bucky’s pulse on his lips, pounding under his skin. He flicks his tongue over it, teasing and tasting, and feels Bucky’s body seize under him.

He draws up, releasing his hold on Bucky, but doesn’t pull out. Bucky’s cock is half-hard again, flushed all pretty between them. Steve settles back into a sitting position, and his cock finally slips out, ripping a hoarse gasp out of Bucky. The moan that follows, when Steve reaches over and gathers him bodily into his lap, is louder, wilder.

Bucky’s pliant in his arms, clinging to Steve’s shoulder and letting himself be arranged however Steve wants him. He ends up with his ass snug against Steve’s dick, still not soft because Steve’s far from done, and slumped along his front. Their chests are pressed together, moving erratically with their breaths. Bucky stills when Steve tilts his head up for a kiss, then gives himself over to it, limply moving his head to the hand Steve has fisted in his hair.

It’s not long before Steve’s grinding against Bucky’s ass, cock sliding wetly against his own mess. Bucky has filled back to full hardness too, squirming each time his cock brushes their bodies. He’s always been more sensitive after coming once, and Steve’s learned so many ways to use it against him.

He doesn’t remember when he started seeing sex as a battle, but he knows it began with Bucky.

Will end with him too.

He wraps his hand around Bucky’s cock, drags it slow and sweet from base to tip, devouring each breathless noise that tries to leave Bucky’s lips. He keeps it slow, tight, wringing faint whines and throaty gasps out of Bucky, and the occasional plea murmured against Steve’s lips, desperate but resigned like he knows Steve won’t take mercy on him.

Steve wonders absently what the point is if he can be selfish and cruel as he wants and Bucky will still like it, still take it as if it’s his due.

Maybe it’s just that he wants this, wants him, and can’t think of a kinder way to say goodbye.

Bucky comes, eventually, spilling at a scrape of a nail along the underside. There’s not much of it because Steve is the one with the extra-everything serum, but a few streaks of liquid heat stains Steve’s arm all the same. He lifts his hand to his mouth and licks the come off his wrist, not taking his eyes off Bucky’s startled ones.

“Jesus,” Bucky whispers, reverent and tortured, and Steve can’t help it after that.

He lifts Bucky by the ass, and he’s so much dead weight but so sweet about it, barely whining when Steve lowers him onto his cock. He’s wet and loose, sloppy with Steve’s come. It’s a smooth, easy slide, but the look on Bucky’s face when Steve bottoms out is raw and gutted.

The first tentative thrust of his hips pulls a hiss from Steve, pretty sensitive himself after coming twice, but it’s Bucky, limp in Steve’s lap and hot around his cock, who keens, high and desperate.

“Ssh,” Steve comforts, fingers probing Bucky’s lips. They part easily for him, and Bucky’s eyes roll back in his head when the fingers slide in. He sucks on them mindlessly, bouncing on Steve’s cock, pretty and perfect and so wholly lost to it.

Steve fucks him until he can’t get it up anymore, until he loses count of how many times he’s come, until Bucky’s shivering half-conscious under him.

He’s wrecked, drenched in sweat and come, curling pathetically into Steve like he can’t bear to be apart. There’s no greater sign that Bucky’s not all here because in his right mind, he only runs from Steve. There’s a reason he’s been fond of Bucky fucked out and sweet with it, right from the beginning, like a part of Steve always knew this was the only way he could have this man no matter how bad he wanted _everything_.

He hates Bucky for coming back, for leaving each time, and for this, but that’s just a thin layer of self-preservation. Steve only really hates himself, like he did each time he forced himself to leave Bucky gasping on the bed, the floor, slumped against walls.

He doesn’t, this time, stays right there with his body curved protectively over Bucky’s. It’s a little funny because he’s what Bucky needs to be protected from, but Bucky just clings like a child and tucks his face into Steve’s neck like he wants to crawl into his ribcage.

Steve planned to fuck Bucky and storm out, hurt him and make a point, hide his need under a flood of rage, but all that vanished somewhere inside a kiss, and now all he has is the soft, wounded parts of him that bleed a little at the sight of Bucky in his arms.

He thinks he could have been good to Bucky, if he had a chance. Good _for_ him, Steve doesn’t know, but he would have tried.

“You ever wish you’d never met me?”

Bucky’s voice makes him start, something sharp sparking up his chest. He’s still folded into Steve, made small and sweet in his arms. He sounds drunk, something about that loose cadence, but the words are clear enough.

Steve says nothing.

Bucky raises his head, looks Steve in the eye, and it feels like someone threw lightning at his heart.

A hand cups his cheek, the flesh warm and trembling, and Steve closes his eyes for a second, leaning in despite himself. Bucky keeps looking at him with his expression broken open, and it’s not fair that he can look at Steve like this and still leave.

“I never wanted to do this to you,” Bucky whispers, and he’s honest and hurting with it. “Doesn’t mean shit now, I know, but I—I’m sorry, I am.” He screws his eyes shut, and it looks almost painful, but his hand remains gentle and feather-light on Steve’s face. “But I still can’t regret it, Steve. It’s fucked up, I’m fucked up, but I know, this way, you won’t ever dare forget me, not until the day you die.”

Steve was never in danger of forgetting Bucky Barnes, not since the moment the Winter Soldier shot a Chitauri soldier two feet away from Steve and answered his salute with a lopsided smirk.

Now, he’s haunted, always will be.

“Are you leaving because of me?” Steve finally asks, and he doesn’t address anything Bucky said. He can’t, and Bucky doesn’t seem surprised at all.

“No. Not entirely,” he amends after a beat. “I need a break. I thought I could—that it’d—I don’t know. It’s not enough. This, any of this. The fighting, avenging. I don’t even know who I am without a gun. And maybe I need to find out. And you—you’re a good man, Steve.”

Steve snorts, eyeing the bite mark bleeding sluggishly on Bucky’s right shoulder and trailing his gaze down to the myriad of bruises scattered along his skin. Bucky’s flesh is red and blue from Steve’s hands and mouth, violence carved into pale flesh.

Bucky just smiles, teeth showing, eyes crinkling at the corners.

He’s beautiful, and it hurts.

“I don’t count. You know I don’t. Ain’t no good for you, Steve. Never was, and I always knew it. I’m cutting you loose. Maybe go on some dates with a nice girl or guy. Make Nat happy.”

“Buck. Don’t.”

The smile fades from Bucky’s face in slow increments, but his eyes go flat long before it’s gone.

“Yeah,” he breathes, lashes fluttering. “Yeah, I know.”

Bucky kisses him, and Steve lets him, turns his head to slot their mouths neatly together. It’s close-mouthed and chaste, like that first kiss in the hospital.

“Goodbye, Steve.”

Steve stays silent, but he trails his fingers along Bucky’s jaw as he rises, as gentle as he knows how to be. Bucky arches into it, tilting his head until even the tips of Steve’s fingers are gone from his skin.

Steve doesn’t look back as he strides into the showers.

In the morning, Bucky’s gone.

**Author's Note:**

> And we’re done. 
> 
> The sequel series is now up! You can find it here: [the hero's shoulders](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1719319)
> 
> “seventy years of sleep” is a reference to [this series of poems.](https://cardiamachina.co.vu/tagged/Seventy-Years-of-Sleep)


End file.
